THE
publishers have kindly asked us to contribute a prefatory note to this
second edition, now issued more than a quarter‑century after the work
was first published. We think it best that the book should be reprinted
as a whole, without alteration. It represents what we loved of Diderot
then and thought to be of lasting worth; as we wrote in the
Introduction: "The masterpieces of world literature have a permanent
value, however far we may be from the period and conditions that gave
rise to them."

This
book was an attempt to give a representative selection for readers of
English. We have not attempted to revise the bibliography or the notes;
modern readers who seek a fuller acquaintance with Diderot's writings
will find no lack of more recent studies—though not, perhaps,
written from our viewpoint.

Diderot
wrote: "This is the fate of all men of genius: they are not at the
level of their own time, they write for succeeding generations."

Those
generations are now arriving. Diderot was a good man in his troubled
times; he still can help to understand our own worried world. No one
who reads and thinks about the selection of Diderot's writings
presented here will fail to be amused and instructed; and perhaps
helped to live more rationally in the present‑day world by
understanding what he wrote so many years ago. Diderot still lives.

London,
June 1963.

JEAN STEWART
JONATHAN KEMP

P.S.
It has been pointed out to us that the translation of the title
“Les bijoux indiscrets”
as “The indiscrete
toys” is not literal.
This was done deliberately by the translators, who felt that the word
"jewels" did not adequately convey the double‑
entendre of Diderot's title.
Let those who would further pursue this nuance read the whole of
“Les bijoux indiscrets.”
All will then become clear and they can make their choice.